The Principle Secretary for State Department for Implementation of Curriculum Reforms, Professor Fatuma Chege, has affirmed that junior secondary school (JSS) will be domiciled in secondary schools.
She said people should avoid the confusion on where Grade 7, 8 and 9 will be placed next year.
“Junior secondary school will be domiciled in secondary schools. There should be no confusion between domiciling, hosting or accommodating. If you are accommodated or hosted, you are a guest, but when you are domiciled, then you belong there legally,” said PS Fatuma Chege.
Prof. Chege who sought to clarify that the ongoing debate about the placement of the pioneer batch of Grade Six candidates under 2-6-3-3-3 curriculum to Junior Secondary Schools, stressed that as much as there are primary schools which will host Junior Secondary Schools, the management and the administration in such instances, will be independent from that of the primary school.
The PS expounded that if for any reason, a Junior Secondary School class will be accommodated in surplus classrooms in a primary school, that is merely accommodation, they do not belong to the primary school, they are domiciled in the secondary sub-sector.
She said the section will therefore have their own Board and that if the government so wishes to establish a Junior Secondary School using the available infrastructure in a primary school, then that primary school will be having a Junior Secondary School.
The PS was speaking at St. Maria Goretti Ruruguti Secondary School in Othaya, Nyeri County, where she commissioned the first complete classroom built under the Competence Based Curriculum project.
Her comments comes after the Basic Education Principal Secretary Julius Jwan said that the junior secondary school will be domiciled both in secondary and primary schools.
Juan said the current classes used by class 7 and 8 will be used to host Grade 7, 8 and 9.
“Classrooms used by pupils of class seven and eight will remain vacant due to the introduction of the CBC. But the classrooms will not go to waste because they are public resources. Instead, they will be used by students of Junior secondary schools,” Jwan said.
At the same time the Education CS George Magoha has praised the contractors for their work which has seen over 2,000 out of the 6,500 CBC classrooms completed in less than two months.
The CS said all CBC classes for junior secondary schools will be ready by the end of January 2023.
The CS said that contrary to reports that only classrooms are being built, the government has put in place plans to ensure that there are enough books and teachers.
“As far as Grade Six is conserved, because we have heard stories that we are building classrooms without teachers, we are prepared because all Grade Six teachers were trained in December last year. This is in addition to the previously trained 250,000 teachers,” he said.
“As we speak, the delivery of Grade Six books to schools is at 90 per cent and by next week, we will have achieved 100 per cent. The process of dealing with Grade Seven books is also ongoing,” he added.
Prof Magoha said that training of CBC teachers would continue in order to ensure a seamless transition.
“There are also questions about Grade Seven teachers in 2023. The government is going to train the entire Grade Seven and Grade Eight teachers in April this year, meaning that teachers will be trained well ahead of time,” he added.
The CS said that there are over 2,000 teachers starting a fresh course while the rest are upgrading from certificate to diploma, adding that there were 10,000 teachers being trained currently.
Prof Magoha defended the government over the high dropout rate in schools, saying significant strides have been made in ensuring that all children are in school.
According to a report by Unesco on the progress made by countries towards achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4, close to 35 per cent of Kenyan secondary school students will not complete upper secondary education by 2030.
But Prof Magoha said the government has done a lot to ensure that children remain in school by introducing the Elimu fund and feeding programmes.
Ms.PS,all these jargons are senseless. Domiciled, hosted, accommodated or any other which you may introduce won’t add any delicacy to the primary sector. For heaven sake, leave primary sector alone & face the secondary perpendicularly. After all the primary has no interest of conflict on the matter.